Making a Pitch, Again, for Barriers to Block Storm Surges

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To gather support for offshore barriers that would block storm surges, a group of proponents gave a tour on the New york Harbor to engineers, elected officials, scientists, urban planners and the news media on Monday.CreditCreditJames Estrin/The New York Times

With some memories of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy five years ago beginning to fade, proponents of a set of offshore barriers to protect the New York metropolitan area from storm surge are re-sounding their alarm.

On a boat tour of New York Harbor on Tuesday, the group of advocates pointed out how little has been done to prevent the sort of flooding that Sandy inflicted on the region in October 2012. Cruising past the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park, they argued that those popular sites and the residential and business districts that surround them could all be swamped again unless barriers are built to hold back the water.

“All of these parks are in jeopardy,” said Bill Golden, president of the National Institute for Coastal and Harbor Infrastructure. “Unless we have a storm-surge barrier, these parks are not going to be protected.”

Mr. Golden served as the host for the two-hour tour on the motor yacht Manhattan II, which was aimed at gathering support for a proposal to build a set of barriers, including one below the Verrazano Narrows to block the Atlantic Ocean from pushing up into the harbor. Another barrier would be designed to stop Long Island Sound from surging south through the East River, flooding parts of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, as it did when Sandy struck.

If those barriers had been in place on Oct. 29, 2012, “it would have been just another windy day in New York City,” Mr. Golden said.

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Malcolm J. Bowman, chairman and founder of the New York New Jersey Metropolitan Storm Surge Working Group and a professor of physical oceanography at Stony Brook University, called for barriers to protect New York City after Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans in 2005.CreditJames Estrin/The New York Times

Instead, a combination of the storm’s winds, a full-moon high tide and a lack of defenses left hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed or damaged and entire neighborhoods without power for a week or more.

Since then, many government agencies have undertaken projects to make the region more resilient to storms like Sandy. Some plans have been drawn up for floodgates and other barriers. But none of the big ones have been constructed yet, said Malcolm J. Bowman, chairman and founder of the New York New Jersey Metropolitan Storm Surge Working Group.

Mr. Bowman, a professor of physical oceanography at Stony Brook University, was introduced on Tuesday as the “Cassandra of storm surge” because he called for barriers to protect New York City after Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans in 2005. In an op-ed essay he wrote in the wake of Katrina, Mr. Bowman prophetically said, “The question is not if a catastrophic hurricane or nor’easter will hit New York, but when.”

Today, the question is whether the New York area will be significantly better prepared for the next storm like Sandy, Mr. Bowman said. Asked how much has changed on this front in five years, Mr. Bowman said, “Not much.”

He said that he did not want to minimize the important and expensive steps that have been taken to harden infrastructure, including subway and tunnel entrances, and to move critical equipment from basements to higher floors. But he feared that a patchwork of small responses would serve as a weak substitute for the bigger solutions that he believes are necessary.

The working group is focused on persuading the United States Army Corps of Engineers that in-water barriers are the best answer. The Army Corps is conducting a study of alternatives and measures that “may further better manage coastal flood risks in the region.”

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The group of advocates for offshore barriers pointed to how popular sites, like the Statue of Liberty, could all be swamped from storm surges unless barriers are built to hold back the water.CreditJames Estrin/The New York Times

The Army Corps uses a cost-benefit analysis to assess proposals, Mr. Bowman said. So the working group is “trying to find ways of expanding the benefit side of the equation.”

The cost, he said, will be daunting. He estimated that the cost of building a barrier in the ocean near Sandy Hook in New Jersey would be at least $25 billion.

“From an engineering point of view, it’s a nightmare,” Mr. Bowman said of the concept of designing and building barriers like the ones that protect London and St. Petersburg, Russia. The Thames Barrier in England, which has been in use since 1982, consists of 10 steel gates that can be raised to block storm surges on the Thames River from flooding London.

Mr. Golden said the group had received enthusiastic support from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Now, he said, the group is working on winning over City Hall.

One of the most ambitious ideas for protecting the city that has made real progress is a plan known as “the Big U,” which would involve berms and walls along the edges of Manhattan from the Battery up to Midtown. That plan won an award of $335 million in a design contest sponsored by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, but construction is not expected to begin until 2020.

The slow progress on comprehensive solutions has frustrated some community leaders.

“Here we are five years after Sandy and there’s no plan in place for Lower Manhattan,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, former chairwoman of Community Board 1. “There’s still so much more to do.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: 5 Years After Sandy, Yet Another Pitch for Barriers to Block Storm Surge. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe